Drucker’s Managerial Newspeak in Education Igor Bijuklič
Summary: The introduction outlines the emergence and modern usage of the term newspeak, followed by an attempt to demonstrate that the effects of newspeak, such as suppression of thought, can also be produced »unintentionally« within certain types of knowledge that extend their field-specific concepts and epistemological methods in the direction of general applicability, regardless of whether they are suited to the nature of the subject/field in question. The central part of the article discusses the implications of F.W. Taylor’s scientific management and the universal applicability of his principles to society, especially the paradigmatic changes brought about by Drucker’s managerial revolution, which, drawing on Taylor, fundamentally redefines the meaning and role of knowledge, education and literacy, which is proved by certain Drucker’s central concepts, such as »economy of knowledge« or »knowledge society«. In the continuation, an argument is made that, in the time of the crisis of the humanist tradition, Drucker’s management is elevated to a mega-paradigm of knowledge and institutions in which knowledge is created. With the formalisation of its status into (super)knowledge that makes knowledge productive as well as decides the future production of knowledge, the redefined concepts of education simultaneously also become key ingredients of managerial newspeak and its discursive production, which, adopting the position of radical reform, aim directly at the educational field. An example is used to demonstrate how the assumptions of Drucker’s concepts undermine the accepted conceptual differences and meanings, which served as orientation points that we were accustomed to following when reflecting on education, its essence and purpose.